Artificial Cells: Creating Life in the Lab

Using manmade materials to produce an artificial cell is “a highly novel concept,” says Hammer. “I think that NASA saw this as a wonderful material, and they wanted to see how far it could evolve.” In some conditions, he says, polymersomes take on shapes that are very reminiscent of the ones biological cells take on when, for instance, they’re dividing.

The integrated project PACE will explore the utilization of the simplest technically feasible elementary living units (artificial cells much simpler than current cells) to build evolvable complex information systems.